


A Call for Trouble and Make it Double

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, Big Brother Jason, Canonical Character Death, Flashbacks, Gen, Hallucinations, I hope this is alright, I'm tagging that because the mist is used in a noncon and worrisome way, Illusions, Minor Original Character(s), Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Percy still feels guilty about Bianca's death, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Self-Esteem Issues, background solangelo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 17:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15563106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Before they could reply, an angry, booming voice shouted out from behind them. “What did you do?”Panicked, the Stoll's spun around, Connor tripping over his own feet and almost falling on Nico if Travis hadn't caught him. It’s not that they were afraid of the son of Zeus- Jupiter... whatever, these Roman/Greek god things made no sense- but watching him storm up now, hands clenched at his sides, face contorted with rage and light glinting dangerously off his glasses was like being trampled by a heard of pegasi."H-hey Jason." Travis laughed nervously, as Jason stopped in front of them "what brings you to our neck of the woods?""Don't play dumb with me boys," Jason snapped, pushing the Stolls aside. "What did you..." his face fell. "Oh, hells."





	1. The Prank

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been re-reading the PJO/HOO books recently so get ready for a whole heap of Percy Jackson fics

Camp Half-Blood was full of demigods the month before the older campers left for college, the cabins fit to busting and the tables crowded with siblings.

The Stoll’s had decided over a too-late night coffee to pull off one last prank –the prank to crown all pranks- and had enlisted the help of Carrie Kingly, a daughter of Hecate.

In her hand was a small milky sphere, the size of a tennis ball, undulating and twisting in her hand like it had a mind of its own. “Who am I throwing this at again?” She turned to the Stoll’s, who were busy standing behind her and giggling.

“I don’t know,” Travis looked around the courtyard. “I suppose we just need to see who needs the most fun. Get them to lighten up.”

“Take a load off,” Connor added with a smirk as he stood on his toes and swiveled his head around the courtyard. He spied Nico di Angelo leaving the Apollo cabin with colorful band-aids on his skin and a lip-shaped bruise on his neck. Connor squealed in delight, dropping from his toes and grabbing his brother's shoulder. “Look!” He pointed.

Nico was making his way towards the stables, probably to take Percy up on his offer of horseback riding lessons, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “He’s coming this way.” Travis laughed, grabbing his brother and Carrie by the arms and dragging them behind the Hermes cabin. “Carrie, you ready?”

“Wait, you want me to use it on the Hades kid?” Carrie looked confused as she allowed Travis to drag her into hiding. “Wouldn’t that just backfire?”

“No no, it’s fine!” Travis’ eyes greedily followed Nico’s approach. “If there’s one person in this camp who needs to lighten up, it’s Nico. Ready, 3....2…1… NOW!” he shouted with laughter as Carrie lobed the ball at Nico’s feet.

The soft Italian song Nico was singing under his breath stopped as a cloudy ball landed by his feet and exploded, covering him in a suffocating fog of Mist, making him blink and the would swim.

When the Mist cleared, Nico was falling backward onto the dirt, blinking and looking around. Frowning, he reached his hand out and swatted the air, head tilting upwards as if following something high into the air. “Wow…” he breathed quietly.

The Stoll’s jumped out from behind their cabin, high fiving each other and cheering, attracting the attention of other campers who started to slowly make their way over. Nico didn’t pay them any mind, too busy looking down at his hands in awe, turning them over slowly.

They crouched down, poking Nico in the legs. “Hey, Nico,” Connor asked, stifling his laughter behind pursed lips. “What’s up?”

Confused at the incessant contact, Nico looked up, but instead of looking at the brothers he seemed to be looking through them, but then they turned around, nobody was there. Nico tilted his head. “Bianca?” The word was soft, loving, sweet and the boys sat back on their hunches, suddenly deflated. “Mama? _Come e’ stai?_ ”

Before they could reply, an angry, booming voice shouted out from behind them. “What did you do?”

Panicked, the Stoll's spun around, Connor tripping over his own feet and almost falling on Nico if Travis hadn't caught him. It’s not that they were afraid of the son of Zeus- Jupiter... whatever, these Roman/Greek god things made no sense- but watching him storm up now, hands clenched at his sides, face contorted with rage and light glinting dangerously off his glasses was like being trampled by a heard of pegasi.

Cassie, the smart girl, was nowhere to be seen. 

"H-hey Jason." Travis laughed nervously, as Jason stopped in front of them "what brings you to our neck of the woods?"

"Don't play dumb with me boys," Jason snapped, pushing the Stolls aside. "What did you..." his face fell. "Oh, hells."

Nico was smiling, placing invisible cards down and speaking in Italian to people who weren't there. "Bianca? _Il tuo turno_."

Shoulders tensing, Jason kneeled down and placed his hand on Nico's arm. "Nico, hey man, can you hear me?" He shook the smaller boy.

Blinking, Nick bleary looked up at him and tilted his head. " _Si_?" He grinned. "Oh, you're pretty looking." He turned to the side. "Bianca, look! Don't you think he's pretty looking?" 

"Nico, do you know who I am?" Jason decided to ignore Nico's other comment. At Nico’s blank stare he sighed. “It’s Jason. You know me.” 

“Oh, you’re like my card!” Nico exclaimed, delighted, as he mimed pulling a card out of his deck and shoving it in Jason’s face. “Descendent of Zeus! 89 hit points, has 200 attack powers, plus 6 to saving throws! I have your figure somewhere…” he started patting down his pockets, and Jason gripped him by the shoulders as he looked around the group. “Bianca, do you know where my figurines are?”

A cold sense of dread trickled down Jason’s spine. He’d heard that name before, pained shouts at night from the mast of the Argo II, whispers from older campers of when he first arrived, the quiet explanation from Will as to why Nico always left a space beside him at the campfire or the tables. He whirled on the Stoll’s. “Explain this, now.”

“It was just a Mist Bomb,” Travis explained quickly. “Nothing harmful.”

“Yeah,” Connor agreed. “He’ll be tripping balls for the next few hours but it won’t hurt him.”

“Right, sure.” Jason stood, carrying most of Nico’s weight as he walked him towards the Hades cabin. “Don’t expect to be let off on this scotch free you two.” He called over his shoulder as he pushed open the cabin door.

It was as cold and creepy as Jason expected, black obsidian walls and skeleton arm sconces. He set Nico down on his bunk and put a hand to his forehead when he glanced down. “Nico, is that a bruise? Did they hurt you? Those lying sons of-” He paused as Nico shook his head.

There was a dreamy expression on his face as he smiled with far away eyes. “No, it was from Will. He has very soft lips and sometimes when he bites, it-” Jason put a hand to Nico’s mouth to silence him.

“Not now, Nico,” Jason stood and turned to the picture of water resting on a table. “You can tell me your deepest darkest secrets later, but right now you’re out of your mind. Let me get you a glass of water.”

When he turned back, Nico’s eyes were wide with fear, hands fisted in the sheets and his breathing coming in panicked gasps. “Where am I?”

"Nico...?" Jason trailed off as Nico flinched and put his back to the wall.                                                                                                                              

"Stop talking." Nico hissed, looking around desperately. "You can't trick me this time. I'm smarter than that now."

"Hey, Nico, what are you talking about?" Jason placed the glass of water on a table. "What's going on?"

Suddenly, Nico gasped and dived past Jason to the other end of the room, pulling his sword and holding it in front of him. "Stay away!" He cried, eyes wide and fearful. "Leave me alone!"

"Nico, it's me!" Jason took a step closer but Nico pointed his sword at Jason's chest. "What's going on with you?"

"You're not real!" Nico's voice broke as he scrambled backward, desperately clawing at the cabin walls, eyes fixed on Jason. "You never were! I won't ever get out of here and this is my punishment, isn't it?" He looked around the room, eyes brimming with unshed tears. "Akhlys, is this your doing? Is this a joke? You told me I was already broken; why would you make it worse?"

Jason paused, heart-catching, as Nico curled into himself and sobbed into his arms, sinking to the floor and muttering in Italian. _Akhlys_ , Jason thought _she was in Tartarus. Percy and Annabeth told me about her. Does Nico think he's in Tartarus?_

"Nico," Jason cooed quietly "it’s alright. You're at Camp Half-Blood, not Tartarus. You’re in the Hades cabin. You're safe."

"Hades doesn't have a cabin at Camp Half-Blood and I'm not accepted there anyway, so I wouldn't go back if you dragged me." Nico sniffled, trying to become one with the wall. "You can't trick me. Not this time."

Reaching out, Jason rested his hand on Nico's arm and grabbed his wrist when he pulled away. "No Nico, this is real. You're safe, you made it out. You're ok."

"I don't believe you," Nico whimpered eyes darting around. "I'm going to die down here alone and nobody is ever going to miss me."

Balking, Jason shook his head, gripping Nico tighter. "Nico, that's not true. We'd all miss you, me and Hazel and Leo and Piper and Frank, Annabeth and Percy-"

"Great, now I know this is Akhlys' doing." Nico snarled as he tried to stand. "I told you, leave me alone. I know better than to talk to ghosts and illusions anyway. Get out of my face."

It was hard to comprehend that this sniveling, scared boy was Nico di Angelo. One of three to ever endure Tartarus and live. One of 2 to be born from a different time. Son of Hades. _This must have been what Nico was like as a kid_ , Jason thought, but then realized _Nico is a kid. He’s 14. Not 18, not 16, not 20, he’s 14._

“Nico,” Jason whispered, barely heard over the sobs of the younger boy in front of him. “What can I do?”

“You can go away and leave me alone.” Nico hiccupped. “It’s not like you haven’t already made my life a misery. Leave me alone.”

“But Nico-”

“Stop it!” Nico screamed, the sconces going dim and the room falling colder than before. If Jason could see the grass beneath the cabin, he was sure it had wilted. “Stop filling my head with… with lies and fake promises! I know who I am and what I am! I know I’m going to die down here and I have nobody to miss me! You don’t need to tell me that!”

“Nico, I am real!” Jason gripped Nico’s arms with both hands now, pulling the resisting boy closer. “Listen to me! Can you feel me touching you? It’s real! You found the Doors of Death and we defeated Gaia. You’re dating Will Solace from the Apollo cabin. You teach sword fighting classes and the little kids here love playing with you.! Sally Jackson sends you a cake every year on your birthday. Nico, listen, this is real, I’m real. You have to believe me.”

Slowly, not as fast as Jason would have liked by slowly nonetheless, Nico’s resistant struggles weakened and the glaze in his eyes faded slowly, the tears down his face and in his eyes glinting in the sluggishly burning torchlight. “Jason?” his whispered, voice caught on a sob “You’re real? I’m- I’m out? It’s not real?”

“Yeah Nico, I’m right here.” Jason brought Nico to his chest and held him while the younger boy sobbed into his chest and clutched at his shirt. “It’s alright, I’m right here. I’m not going to leave you.”

After a few moments of sobbing, Nico whispered “I’m tired now” and Jason lifted him up and carried him to his bunk, but Nico was still desperately clasping onto his shirt. “Don’t leave.”

So Jason made himself comfortable and laid down with Nico, covering the blankets over both of them as Nico writhed and sobbed and hiccupped and begged, muttering words like, _Percy, Will, Bianca, Mama, why, Father, Bob, help, Jason, how, what did I do, I’m sorry,_ and Jason just clutched him tighter to his chest and held him until they both fell asleep.

Nico was gone when Jason woke up, the covers pulled neatly over him and tucked into the sides of the bed and the early morning light streaming in through the uncovered windows to glitter across the floor.


	2. The Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that the ending is a bit anti-climatic. I hope it's ok! Tell me what you think x

The first thing Jason did was to venture towards the Poseidon cabin and find Percy, who was frantically shoving rubbish and unfolded clothes out of sight. “Oh, hey man.” Percy shoved a half-eaten jar of peanut butter (which seemed to be eaten with rather large fingers) into a helmet with a blue plume and turned it upside down. “You come to help clean up for inspection?” He flashed Jason a grin. “Or do you need help with yours?”

Jason shrugged as he closed the cabin door behind him. “Nah man, it’s Piper and Annabeth. I’m usually let off the hook a little with them.”

Almost dropping his armful of clothes, Percy turned to gawp at Jason. “What the hells? They nag on me more! Annabeth has never once let me off the hook.” He scowled before throwing a shirt at Jason. “Well, if you’re here, you can assist. I’m the only occupant in the cabin so I don’t have any help for inspections.”

Frowning, Jason walked to a pile and started folding clothes. “If you’re just one person, how do you manage to make so much mess?” He teased.

“Shut up, Grace.” Percy laughed tossing a shoe at Jason’s head, which he ducked and it bounced harmlessly off the back wall. “Sometimes my brother stays over as well. Tyson? I don’t think you’ve met him, but he has like, an addiction to peanut butter. I only just managed to clean it off the walls by his bunk.”

“Oh right, I think I’ve heard of him. Cyclops, yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s a big adorable goofball. I love him to death.”

“I’d love to meet him one day.”

“You should. You two would get on like a house on fire.”

Jason grinned, but the mention of death reminded him of what he was really there for, which may have been unfair to Nico. “Hey Percy,” Jason opened a drawer and shoved a handful of freshly folded socks into it. “Did you hear about what happened yesterday?”

Currently trying to hold back a torrent of clothes and knickknacks from falling out of the cupboard, Percy gave a strained grunt. “I didn’t hear anything. I was at the stables all day man, so unless you want to know about the newborn fowls or the pegasi sugar cube addiction, I don’t think I have any news for you.”

“About something that happened with Nico?” Giving up with the closet, Percy slammed the door shut before anything could tumble out and had taken to pulling objects out from under his bunk, but stopped at the mention of Nico’s name, hand buried in dust bunnies. “And the Stoll’s?”

“I already don’t like where this is going.” Percy sighed as he sat heavily on his bunk and waved Jason over to join him.

“You shouldn’t.” Looking around the slightly cleaner cabin, Jason was surprised that he couldn’t quite find the words he wanted to say, not with Percy’s eyes boring burning holes of concern and anger into his head. He hadn’t realized how intimating and dangerous the son of Poseidon was before, but he very much did now. “Have you heard of a Mist Bomb? New toy from the Hecate cabin repertoire. Connor and Travis thought it would be funny to use it on Nico.”

“Holy Hephaestus please tell me your joking,” with his mouth hanging open and his eyes bulging, Jason understood now why Annabeth often ridiculed that Percy looked like a fish. “What happened?”

“I got there when there was already a crowd, and Nico was on the floor,” Jason explained. “He was talking in Italian. To Bianca and his mum, but I thought Bianca was reincarnated?”

“She is, it wasn’t her ghost if that’s what you’re thinking.” Percy leaned his head against the back wall. “Trick of the Mist, like when Hazel does it.”

“Yeah. He called me ‘pretty-looking’ and said he didn’t know who I was but said all these numbers I couldn’t understand. Called me a ‘Descendent of Zeus’ and went looking for my figurine?”

There was a ghost of a smile on Percy’s face, a memory of a time long gone. “Myth-o-magic. When we found him, he was obsessed with that game. Bianca died on a quest we went on together to free Annabeth, trying to get him the only figurine he didn’t have.” Percy looked defeated. “Would you believe that it was the Hades figure?”

Jason blinked. “I never knew that.”

“Yeah well, I should have been there to save her.” Percy rubbed the back of his neck. “What happened next?”

“I took him to his cabin.” Jason cleared his throat. “It started off fine. I stopped him from talking about his personal life though. I went to get him water and when I turned back around he was scared out of his mind. I thought he was going to kill me.”

“Nico? Scared? I don’t think those words have ever really gone together lately.”

“He didn’t know who I was. He thought he was still in Tartarus.”

Percy closed his eyes. “I don’t know what else you expected. Probably the most traumatic experience of his life and he went through it alone. That’s gotta suck. If I hadn’t had Annabeth, I doubt I would have made it out of there in one piece. Hells, I _still_ don’t think I made it out in one piece.”

Rubbing his hands roughly through his hair, Jason sighed out his nose.  “I’ve only just realized that he’s 14, Perce. He’s younger than all of us, yet he’s been through more than any of us could ever dream of.”

“Yeah, he and Hazel are the youngest, but they’re the oldest too.” Percy agreed. “I don’t know how that would work. Technically speaking, they’re both in their 70’s.”

Jason shivered. “Ugh, please don’t make me think about that.”

They were silent a moment, contemplating the unfairness of life when Percy spoke out of the silence. “So, what do you want to do about it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Connor and Travis. You don’t want to get them back for what they did to Nico?”

Looking around the cabin, Jason took in the wrappers and tissues on the floor, the twisted and knotted fishing net tangled with a trident up on the roof, the clothes covered in dust still peeking out from under the bed, the faint smears of peanut butter on the opposite wall but the very strong smell. “But… the inspection?”

Percy waved him off. “What about the inspection? What’s Annabeth going to do? I can handle stable duty, I basically do it anyway.” He leaned forward, a new, mischievous smirk in his eye. “So come on, what have you got in mind?”

“I honestly didn’t get that far ahead,” Jason admitted. “We could probably just teach them a lesson.”

“I have a much better idea.” Percy stood, strolling to his cabinet, where he pocketed Riptide and walked to the door. “One on one combat, the sons of Hermes versus the sons of the Big Three. I mean, we’re not going to hurt them much, but how embarrassing would it be to get their ass beat in front of the whole camp?”

Grinning Jason took Percy’s outstretched hand and stood with his friend. “I like the way you think, Jackson.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Grace. I’ll take Travis, you take Connor.”

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by this post: http://ilyone.tumblr.com/image/90365923058 by @ilyone on Tumblr which was inspired by this fic: http://betsib.tumblr.com/post/89905696302/jasico-delirious-hi-honey-hope-youre-having-a by @Betsib, also on Tumblr. 
> 
> I hope those links work and I strongly encourage you to go check out their awesome stuff!


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